WHY IRAN HAS ALREADY WON THE WAR
“God
created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
Mark Twain
Since the conflict began on
Saturday, February 28, analysts such as Alastair Crooke, Larry C. Johnson,
Douglas Macgregor, John Mearsheimer, Scot Riter or Lawrence Wilkerson have
already carefully characterized the stakes and issues at play in the ongoing
war. The United States cannot win it, Iran cannot lose it; but the consequences
of the conflict will make all countries in the region losers, not to menon the
global economy, which will suffer to varying degrees from tensions in the
Persian Gulf and beyond. Much has been said about the folly of this war, based
on an almost unbelievable ignorance of Iran: the absence of clear objecves, an
unplanned and lawless aggression, a worrying state of military unpreparedness,
and a headlong rush with no way out. The lies that jusfied the atack on Iran,
falsely accused of posing an imminent danger and being on the verge of
acquiring nuclear weapons, are reminiscent of those that, in 2003, movated the
US invasion of Iraq, plunging the region into instability that has never
ceased. The difference, however, is notable: Iran is not Iraq, and the contrast
between the reality of war and the rhetorical sleight of hand of President
Donald Trump and his entourage reaches a degree of schizophrenia unprecedented
in recent history. More broadly, this conflict is a remarkable revelaon of a
global crisis in diplomacy, of a fractured internaonal order, and of a
dysfunconal or toxic media system.
For anyone familiar with Iran,
this war is the result of decades of misinterpretaon and ignorance of the
Iranian situaon. The 12-day war (June 13-24, 2025) had already shown that
Israel's defeat, forced to request a ceasefire, was less due to military
capabilies than to a lack of knowledge about Iran, its socio-cultural condions,
and its military power. One might have thought that the lessons of this war,
which I experienced firsthand in Tehran, would be learned. This was not the
case. The media and even “experts” sll relay a constellaon of prejudices, heard
for decades, which any serious Iranologist can easily refute or correct: “Iran
is weakened”, “the mullahs' regime is on its last legs”, “the Islamic Republic
no longer has any legimacy”, “Iranian society wants a free and secular
country”.
In a context where Western actors
in the conflict generally display an alarming lack of historical knowledge, the
purpose of this arcle is to highlight the essenal elements for understanding Iran.
The “mullah regime” and other
prejudices
Firstly, Iranians are not Arabs.
They are originally Indo-Europeans, like Western peoples, meaning that modern
Iranians are closer to Westerners than they are to Arabs or Turks. The Indo-Europeans
who were the ancestors of the Iranian peoples (Medes, Persians) arrived on the
Iranian Plateau between the end of the 2nd millennium and the beginning of the
1st millennium BCE. From the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus in the 6th
century BCE, Iranians became the dominant culture in a Middle East that has
always been a mosaic of peoples, religions, and cultures.
The product of a thousand years
of history, contemporary Iran is animated by a triple identy:
• Iranian,
first and foremost, dang back to anquity and fueling modern naonalism;
• Muslim
since the 7th century, Shiite Muslim since the 16th century;
• Western,
especially since the 19th century, when European influence became increasingly strong.
This cultural complexity is
reflected at all levels. Beyond the naonal unity established by the Pahlavi
dynasty (1925–1979), Iran is a fundamentally mul-ethnic and mulcultural
country. While Persians make up about half of the populaon, the other half is
composed of various Turkish or Turkic-speaking groups, Arabs, and peoples
distantly related to Iranians, such as Kurds and Baluchis. Iran uses three
calendars (Iranian, Muslim, and Western). Everyday culture blends Iranian
tradions, Muslim values, and Western cultural elements. Even the Islamic
Republic is a hybrid system: it is at once a Western-style naon-state and
democracy, a republic that is the heir to the Constuonalist Revoluon of 1906,
an imperial power rooted in a thousand-yearold tradion of governance, and a
system of religious guidance (imamocracy rather than theocracy) with ancient
roots.
Since the 16th century, Iranians
have been mostly Shiites, but Iranian Islam is complex in its history and
diverse in its lived experience. Muslim pracces are at the crossroads of
Shiism, myscal and Sufi movements, whose ideas have spread for centuries in
Persian poetry (Nezami, Atar, Rumi, Sa'di, Hafez, Jami), militant and
ideological Islam promoted by the state, and interacons between religion and
culture that vary according to region and ethnicity. Contrary to secularizing
and projecve prejudices, the presence of religion in polical life is a centuriesold,
even millennial tradion, to the point that it constutes an Iranian polical
archetype: in this respect, the Islamic Revoluon of 1979 merely formalized an
ancient structural principle within a modern polical architecture.
However, reducing the Islamic
Republic to a “mullah regime” is a mistake, because although clerics are found
at various levels of power, the policies pursued are mainly linked to an
imperial tradion. Since the Achaemenid Empire (6th century BCE), Iran has been
the regional power and has built itself polically over centuries based on an
imperial polical, legislave, and administrave structure. Even aer the arrival
of Islam in the 7th century, it was Iranian viziers who, alongside the Abbasid
caliphs or Turkish sultans, administered the empires or kingdoms. This resulted
in tradions of governance that were parally Islamized aer the revoluon, but which
in reality are rooted in a pre-modern or even pre-Islamic mode of governance,
strategic approach, and identy horizon. In many respects, the polics of the
Islamic Republic are less influenced by religion than in Israel, where ultra-Orthodox
Jews jusfy colonial ambions through historical myths and messianism, or in the
United States, whose current pro-Israel policy is permeated by the Zionist
messianism of evangelicals.
Iran also has centuries-old
military tradions, underpinned by religious values (the martyrdom of Imam
Hossein in Karbala) and heroic values (the epic tale of the Book of Kings by the poet Ferdowsi).
Created in 1979 to protect the newly created Islamic Republic, the Revoluonary
Guards have acquired muldimensional experse over the decades in maters of
revoluon and counter-revoluon, convenonal warfare and asymmetric warfare.
Iran during the Islamic period
was the central culture of the Middle East, extending its influence as far as
Central Asia and northern India. It is therefore hardly surprising that, of all
the countries in the region apart from Türkiye, Iran has the richest and most
diverse cultural heritage, which is sll alive and influenal today. A source of
identy tensions and polical crises, the country's strong hybridity is also its
strength and one of the reasons for its cultural supremacy in the region. Because
of Iran's cultural complexity, Iranian society is as culturally diverse as it
is polically divided. This was the case during the Islamic Revoluon in 1979,
and it is sll the case today. While many mourn the death of the Supreme Leader,
others blame him for Iran's polical stagnaon in recent years, cultural
censorship, and geopolical choices that have kept the country internaonally
marginalized.
There is also a gap between the
elites and the populaon, which has mulple causes. Historically, there has
always been a certain distance between the rulers (royal for millennia) and a
strongly family-oriented, corporast, or tribal society. Like any modern state,
Iran also experiences a relave divide between the people and the elites, even
though the Islamic Republic, unlike the Pahlavi monarchy, which had enshrined
the solitary power of a single man, has succeeded in beter integrang the
populaon into the polical process and naon building.
Naonalism, however, is the force
that unites Iranians across all divisions. This was the case during the Iran-Iraq
War (1980-1988), when Iranians united, despite socio-polical divisions that
could have led to civil war, to defend their country against foreign
aggression. Today, Iranians are similarly presenng a united front against an
imposed war. Naonalism, religious movaons, imperial strength, and the ideal of
resistance: faced with this mental infrastructure, which is as important as
ballisc missiles, Israel and the United States have already lost the war and
may never be able to win the peace.
Why the idea of a “regime change” makes no sense
Experts from all sides have
already pointed out that, apart from the illegimacy of the IsraeliAmerican
aggression, bombing has never brought about regime change. Worse sll, in the
case of Iran, the pety and irresponsible assassinaon of Ayatollah Khamenei will
only reinforce anAmerican naonalism throughout the country, the sovereignist
and an-Western determinaon at the heart of the Iranian system, and fuel Shiite
and, more broadly, Muslim anger against the West throughout the Islamic
world.
It should also be noted that
killing a man, even if he is the Supreme Leader, does not kill a system, let
alone a polical Idea; that Ali Khamenei, who died at the age of 86, had been
raising the issue of his succession for more than ten years and that a power
vacuum was in fact inconceivable; that the Supreme Leader is not isolated, but
surrounded by a galaxy of allegiances and figures, both apparent and hidden,
who constute a deep and far-reaching apparatus; that the assassinaon of Ali
Khamenei has made him a martyr and an icon, so that his death has made him even
more powerful than his living presence. How, moreover, can we imagine for a
single second that deadly and destrucve bombings could bring about an Iranian
government that is not hosle to lawless and ruthless aggressors? And how could
anyone imagine that a populaon of over 90 million would collaborate with a
regime imposed from abroad aer a war whose first act was the massacre of
schoolgirls?
Iran's polical organizaon is both
a vercal organizaonal chart and a mandala. The republican system, with its
hierarchy of parliament, ministers, and president, is overseen by the Supreme
Leader, a religious authority who is also the visible face of the deep state,
the essenal and central axis of power. The later truly represents Iran's
imperial-religious tradion, which dates back to ancient mes for polical and
administrave pracces, and to the Safavid era (16th century) for the current
associaon between vercal power and a clergy that is both hierarchical and
polycentric.
A priori, and in retrospect, the
Pahlavis appear to have been a modernizing and secular interlude in
contemporary history. The Islamic Revoluon has been interpreted as a
fundamentalist return to Islam, whereas it is above all a rebalancing of the
Pahlavi policy, which was uniformly and unilaterally pro-Western and
Iranophilic. Just as the Pahlavis were unable to completely Westernize Iran,
the Islamic Republic has been unable to completely Islamize the country.
Moreover, under the Islamic Republic, the Westernizaon iniated by the Pahlavis
has connued in a thousand ways, oen indirectly, despite Islamizaon policies and
in defiance of revoluonary intenons. Paradoxically, perhaps, for those who
operate solely with dualisc historical models, Iran under the Islamic Republic
is more truly modern than it was during the Pahlavi era, when superficial
Americanizaon gave a pseudo-modernist veneer to a largely archaic dictatorial
regime.
For more than 20 years,
naonalism, which was banned during the Revoluon because it contradicted the
transnaonal ideal of the ummah (the Muslim community), has become the cement that
binds Iranians together. Even the Islamic Revoluonary Guard Corps have been
presented for years, not as a praetorian army defending a revoluonary ideology
or ideal, but as the naonal force protecng the Iranian naon. Although this
naonalism is historically recent and European-inspired, it actually has ancient
origins: it is Iranian identy, based on a territory that Iranians have
dominated polically and culturally since the 6th century BCE.
The Islamic Revoluon can be seen
as a break with the past, but in reality it extended the Pahlavi era in many
ways, while drawing on a centuries-old polical identy—imperial and religious. The
Islamic Republic connued the development of industries, infrastructure,
schools, and universies iniated by the Pahlavis. Although Iran has incorporated
a Muslim agenda into certain posions and strategic orientaons, in pracce its
policy is more imperial than ideological, more naonalist than pan-Islamic, and
more pragmac than ideological. Aer the Islamic Revoluon, polics was dominated
for about 10-15 years by religious and revoluonary ideals, but today, the
Islamic Republic is essenally posioned on a naonalist-imperialist axis, which
was the main characterisc of the Pahlavi period and which in fact constutes the
essenal connuity of an Iranian presence since ancient mes.
This is what makes the idea of
regime change problemac. Do we want to change the leaders? They will be
replaced according to the arrangements provided for in the polical system
(elecons or appointments). Do we want to change the system itself? We can undoubtedly
modify certain provisions in the organizaonal chart or certain mechanisms in
the polical system, but we cannot touch the deep state, the fundamental
structure of Iranian power, rooted in history. Do we want more democracy in
Iran? There is no need to imagine the return of a king or opponents who, in
order to control a vast and heterogeneous country, would undoubtedly be just as
authoritarian as previous governments. Would it not be more appropriate, and
more in line with social developments and debates in Iran itself, to consider
strengthening the republicanism of the Islamic Republic, removing the polical
influence of unelected instuons and redefining the prerogaves of the Supreme
Leader in a more moral than polical sense? Do we want a more liberal society,
less subject to public censorship? Since the era of reformist President
Khatami, and with the emergence of new generaons, thanks to the internet,
following the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement (2022), a liberalizaon—oen half-hearted
and disconnuous, but real nonetheless—has been taking place in Iran, although
it is now compromised by the security measures put in place as a result of the
war and its aermath.
Let there be no mistake, however:
for a long me to come, Iran will undoubtedly have a polical system that is
imperave and strongly hierarchical, because this mode of governance has its
roots in the patriarchal structure of Iranian families, in the tradionalist
mosaic of the country, and in the principle of religious or myscal guidance.
Authoritarian tendencies are widespread across the polical spectrum, from
reformers to conservaves, who have been eager to impose naonalist, populist,
developmentalist, or Islamist programs from the top down.
Furthermore, to those who
consider Western-style liberal democracy to be the ulmate ideal and the “end of
history,” it should be remembered that liberals in Iran are a minority, and
always have been, and that liberal discourse is mainly characterisc of an
Iranian diaspora that is too Westernized to understand a country it oen knows
very litle about and which is not limited to the chic neighborhoods of northern
Tehran. For many Iranians, who may well be crical of the Islamic Republic, what
maters most is not necessarily or always our Western concepon of freedom and
our emphasis on liberalism, but rather tradional, cultural, religious, and
identybased values. Moreover, freedom in the West is relave, and Westerners,
fed by mainstream media and commercial algorithms, do not even realize how
condional their freedom is and how formated their view of things may be. The
Islamic Republic's longevity stems from a combinaon of social transformaon and
cultural restoraon: it has enabled the social advancement of individuals and
social groups who were excluded or marginalized during the Pahlavi era and who
now form the polical, administrave, and intellectual backbone of the country;
it has also defended values with which social groups that did not idenfy with
the Pahlavis' selecve Westernizaon and modernism can beter idenfy.
As for Reza Pahlavi, heir apparent to the throne, he has no
polical influence, no networks in
Iran, and no experse. Some have
suggested a scenario inspired by King Juan Carlos in Spain or Ayatollah
Khomeini in 1979. In both cases, the comparison is irrelevant. Juan Carlos
ensured a democrac transion in Spain because Franco had died and the queson of
the polical future was open. In Iran, everyone is alive and well. Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei has been killed, but a council will temporarily replace him
unl the Assembly of Experts appoints a successor. If the president dies, the
vice president will replace him unl a new one is elected by popular vote.
Khomeini was able to seize power
in 1979 thanks to a network of clerics in Iran, a polical project defined as
early as 1970, and a charisma that contrasted with the neposc wheeling and
dealing of the Pahlavi court. Reza Pahlavi le Iran 47 years ago, so he and his
entourage literally do not know their country. Even more importantly, in the
eyes of many Iranians, Reza Pahlavi is associated with US imperialism, which
seeks to subjugate Iran and reduce it to a satellite of Israeli-American
interests. Collaboraon with foreign powers is, in a way, part of the Pahlavi
family's desny: Reza Shah came to power thanks to the Brish; he was deposed in
1941 by the Allies, who placed his son Mohammad-Reza on the throne; the later
owed his return to power, aer the coup against Mossadegh in 1953, to the United
States and the Brish. Unlike his grandfather and father, who judiciously commited
Iran to necessary industrial modernizaon, Reza Pahlavi called for war on his “fellow
cizens” to sasfy an Israeli-American ambion of which he is merely a pawn.
Finally, we cannot fail to menon
the cultural divide between Iranians in Iran and Iranians in the diaspora.
There is some interacon between the two sides, but their different trajectories
mean that they speak the same idiom but not (necessarily) the same language. It
would be thus a dangerous illusion to imagine that Iranians in Iran, who have
suffered for decades, would welcome with open arms a diaspora that, in the wake
of a puppet government imposed from abroad, would take their jobs and posions
and impose a polical and cultural reorientaon on them.
The success of the Islamic
Revoluon, which can be measured by the hoslity of the United States toward Iran
for more than four decades, is that it created a country armed against foreign
interference. Admitedly, the Islamic Republic has paid a high price for this:
internally, through oen paralyzing ideological and polical tensions between
isolaonists, who want to restrict diplomac relaons as much as possible and
limit them to economic or scienfic exchanges, and realists, who want to
normalize internaonal relaons with the West; externally, through Israeli-American
pressure, which intends, by hook or by crook, to bring Iran back to a state of
(geo)polical vassalage.
The Greater Game
The Great Game was the Anglo-Russian
rivalry in Central Asia. The current situaon calls for a broader perspecve,
encompassing Eurasia and Asia. To understand this, we must go back to the 16th
century. The Spanish and Portuguese inaugurated the creaon of European colonial
empires, with the Portuguese arriving in the Persian Gulf in 1507. The
following century saw the English, French, and Dutch carve out their own
colonial empires, with the English driving the Portuguese out of the Persian
Gulf in the early 17th century. Persia (Iran) gradually became a crossroads of
foreign interference, mainly Brish and Russian, which intensified in the 19th
century. In 1907, the Brish and Russians even divided their influence over Iran
between them, the former claiming the south and the later the north.
It was under the Westernized rule
of the Pahlavis that Iran gained sovereignty, albeit relave: the Brish retained
considerable influence unl World War II, then the Americans interfered
extensively in the administraon and even the polics of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
unl 1979. The overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953 by the CIA remains,
for Iranians, a symbol of the United States' confiscatory control over Iran.
The an-Western senment of the Islamic Revoluon was thus intended to free Iran
from the polical, economic and even cultural interference of Western powers
since at least the beginning of the 19th century. This sovereignist axis is at
the heart of the Iranian system and the basis for its proteconist and independence-seeking
policies: governments may change, but this structural determinant remains.
The Western demonizaon of Iran
since 1979 can therefore also be seen as the connuaon of an imperialist policy
and vision which, unable to influence Iran as before, seeks to control the
narrave (Iran as a negave force) and jusfy measures (sancons, pressure,
subversion operaons, now war) designed to contain it. Therefore, the desire to
control Iran's nuclear program, which dates back to Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, can
also be understood as the connuaon of a centuries-old imperialist policy in the
region, which has created an inherently distorted diplomac game. In this sense,
Iran's nuclear program is only a pretext: the elements of negoaon and the rules
of the game are biased, and European diplomats are either blinded by their
Westernism and ignorance of history, or complicit in or exploited by Israeli-American
manipulaons. Iran's sensivity to the Palesnian queson, which Western countries
want to reduce to ideology because of their bias, is part of Iran's acute
awareness of Western imperialism, from which it has suffered for more than two
centuries.
On the other hand, since the 1st
century BCE, Iran has been a major link in what has been called the “Silk
Roads”, land connecons between the Mediterranean and the Far East.
Geographically, it remains an essenal link in the new Chinese Silk Roads
launched in 2013. In a globalized world, Iran is once again the target of US
neo-imperialism, which is reviving a five-century-old Western imperialist
agenda and aims to achieve at least six key objecves:
•
Control the Middle East by destabilizing and weakening
the central piece of the regional geopolical puzzle, since Iran, heir to an
empire, is the only safe and stable country in the region;
•
Preserve financial interests in the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are subject to the United States, by weakening
the only country—Iran—that could be a decisive rival and hold supremacy that
marginalizes all the countries and economies of the Persian Gulf;
•
Break the east-west (Mediterranean-Asia) and north-south
(Russia-Iran-India) connecons by striking the country—Iran—that constutes their
crossroads and fundamental link;
•
Atack Chinese interests by striking an essenal oil
supplier and a crucial link in China's new routes;
•
Counter Russian influence by weakening a partner that
has become crucial in the emerging new geopolical order driven by the BRICS
countrie
•
Controlling the resources of a country immensely rich
in oil (3rd largest proven reserves in the world) and gas (2nd
largest proven reserves in the world).
What ancient history teaches us
for the present day is that Iran is the secular regional power in the area and
it will connue to be. When Islam arrived in the 7th century, the Iranian
plateau had been Iranianized by more than a millennium of Iranian empires
(Achaemenids, Parthians, Sasanians). In the Islamized East, even though the
rulers were mainly Arab or Turkish, Iranian culture established itself as the
central, referenal, and influenal culture. The Islamic Revoluon gave the
impression of a turbulent or fragile country, but this may be an opcal
illusion: the revoluon changed the forms of power without altering the polical
archetypes, the secular pracces of power, or the essenal axes of identy. The
polical and religious structure of Iranian power is modern in form but ancient
in substance: since ancient mes, royal power has been backed by religious
authority. The secularized reign of the Pahlavis is a relave excepon, as
Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi had a myscal sensibility common to many Iranian
rulers.
Consequently, Iran, the axial
civilizaon of the Middle East, will not collapse. First, it is too big to fall.
Second, it is structured with a fundamental core-identy: regardless of changes
in polical organizaon or palace revoluons, this identy remains a decisive axis
that constutes a millennial connuity and guarantees the permanence of Iranian
tradions (spirituality, pracces of power, family, tradional transmission,
etc.). Finally, Iran has been the master of its region for 2,600 years. The
only country that can rival it is Türkiye, heir to an empire (the Otoman
Empire), but one that is less ancient. The Turks setled in Asia Minor from the
11th century AD, while the Indo-Europeans arrived on the Iranian plateau as
early as the 2nd millennium BC. If one had to bet on the future of a country,
it would undoubtedly be the one with the oldest roots and the strongest
cultural heritage. With the excepon of Türkiye, all the other countries in the
region are recent constructs and are characterized by chronic instability or
structural weaknesses.
Why the West doesn't understand Iran
Anyone familiar with Iran is
struck by the inappropriate, sterile, or unintelligent nature of Western
diplomacy toward Iran. Admitedly, the Islamic Revoluon has generated mistrust,
misunderstandings, and even systemic animosity between Iran, European countries,
the United States, and Israel. Forty-seven years aer this revoluon, while
Iranian society and even certain polical aspects of the Islamic Republic have
changed profoundly, Westerners sll view Iran through a series of prejudices
that are, at best, inadequate and, at worst, delusional. Apart from the era of
reformist President Khatami (1997-2005), the only notable excepon was the
period from 2015 to 2017, when the signing of the JCPOA offered the prospect of
lucrave investments in Iran. The European media then temporarily abandoned
their demonizaon or caricatured portrayal of Iran in favor of promong the
country, its culture, and its potenal, in order to pave the way for economic
rapprochement.
The Iranian case is exemplary for
understanding how the media constructs a reality disconnected from the real
world, but also for studying the epistemological limits of academic studies and
diplomac analyses. Indeed, studies that are capable of considering Iran in all
its diversity and offering a balanced, mullateral, and dispassionate view are
extremely rare. A country as complex as Iran requires a muldisciplinary and “holisc”
vision, yet the analyses produced by think tanks, diplomac circles, and even
universies are variously marked by unilateralism, corporasm, compartmentalizaon
of speciales, or ideology.
Broadly speaking, the Western view of Iran is dominated by
three levels of preconceived ideas:
•
Orientalist prejudices, well described by Edward
Said for the Arab world, and largely relevant to Iran, which have entered the
popular and media subconscious, painng a contemptuous picture of Eastern
peoples as irraonal, deceiul, cruel, belligerent, lazy, and outside of history;
•
Islamophobia, which has its roots in the Middle
Ages and sees Islam as a religious, cultural, and military threat, always
seeking to conquer the world and bring about the “great replacement” of
Chrisans by Muslims;
•
Iranophobia, sparked by the Islamic Revoluon and
fueled ever since by opponents of the Islamic Republic (royalists, mujahideen,
etc.), Israeli lobbies, and American policians sll scarred by the hostage
crisis at the US embassy (November 4, 1979 - January 20, 1981).
To these three sets of prejudices
must be added a neocolonialist or neoimperialist paradigm which, completely
ignoring the history of decolonizaon in the 20th century, considers that, in
the global order, Western or Westernized countries are the norm of civilizaon
and the arbiters of good and evil. Countries that do not share this paradigm
are devalued in terms of legimacy, their sovereignty is minimized, and they are
denied a full voice and status. This asymmetry has been blatantly evident in
negoaons between Iran and Western countries since the 2010s. Donald Trump
withdrew from the 2015 agreement (JCPOA), then the Europeans failed to comply
with the agreement aer claiming they wanted to maintain it, and finally, Iran
was atacked militarily in 2025 and 2026: yet it is Iran that is systemacally
accused of betraying commitments, refusing to negoate, and acng as a
destabilizing agent.
The data accumulated on a country
is merely a skeleton that must be fleshed out with praccal and ongoing
knowledge of the field. No mater how extensive it may be, informaon is useless without
the right tools to interpret it. There is no point in knowing Persian if you do
not understand what is being said and implied. Unfortunately, there are very
few specialists on Iran currently present in Iran, or who have lived, direct,
prolonged, and diverse experience there. These specialists are also rarely
listened to, or are even excluded from the mainstream media, insofar as they
disturb policians and lobbies who are more interested in their fantasies than
in reality. Studies and reports on Iran are most oen writen by people who do
not know the country directly or who have a purely theorecal or outdated view
of it, or by Westernized Iranians who adopt a “neo-Orientalist” view of their
country and culture.
The Iranian diaspora readily
presents us with clichés of a “dictatorial mullah regime.” However,
sociologically speaking, this diaspora is made up of royalists, opponents,
refugees, and economic immigrants who, oen and for various reasons, take a
crical stance toward a country they actually know only parally, of which they
form an idealized and somemes unrealisc representaon, and which they readily
judge based solely on their own, inevitably personal, experience. In the media
and popular culture, there are also works that are constantly cited, such as
Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran
(2003) or Marjan Satrapi's graphic novels Persepolis
(2000-2003), but which talk about Iran in the 1980s or early 1990s, as if Iran
had not changed in thirty years.
The result is a country that
everyone talks about but no one outside Iran really knows. The consequences of
such ignorance are extremely serious, and Iran's victory in the 12-day war is
also a defeat for Israeli-American intelligence, and more broadly for cultural
knowledge of Iran. Four sets of fundamental errors ulmately forced Israel to
call for an end to the conflict:
•
Military: underesmaon of Iran's power and organizaonal
strength, revealing a Western arrogance that disparages or minimizes the
abilies of others;
•
Strategic: the Iranians did not hesitate to retaliate,
forcefully and with a remarkably well thought-out and informed strategic
approach, which also revealed an “Orientalist” contempt that underesmates the
adversary;
•
Polical: the Iranian state did not collapse, contrary
to predicons that ignored Iran's deeprooted structures;
•
Cultural: the Iranians stood together against the
enemy, instead of revolng against their government, demonstrang a lack of
understanding of the psychocultural mechanisms at work in the country.
The current war, as we have said,
reveals exactly the same mistakes, and one wonders whether history and
experience are not like a lantern hanging behind our backs: they only
illuminate what we forget, not the reality before us. The same misunderstanding
underlies the embargo against Iran, a veritable economic war that has been
waged for 47 years.
Since the Islamic Revoluon, Iran
has been subject to sancons that have become increasingly severe and widespread
over the decades. While the Iranian economy is suffering and has been steadily
deteriorang, especially over the past two decades, the embargo has not brought
down or even shaken the Iranian state. It is true that embargoes are essenally
a mater of polical communicaon and markeng and oen have litle to do with
diplomac efficiency or real knowledge of the situaon. They serve to sasfy
public opinion or lobby groups, but have the flaw of not being accompanied by
any efficient or competent policy.
The embargo against Iran is above all a ballet of hypocrisy
and a display of cynicism. The United States, through front companies, has
granted itself exempons, while prohibing other countries (European or Asian)
from trading with Iran. The harmful effect of the embargo, moreover, is to
affect the populaon, not a government or elites who have connuous access to
oil, gas, or customs resources. It also creates a form of perverse solidarity
between isolaonists within the Iranian state, who want to cut off all relaons
with the West, and Western lobbies or policians who want to isolate Iran on the
internaonal stage. It also locks in a self-serving complicity between state and
parastatal organizaons in Iran, which, thanks to the embargo, control the black
market and a hidden economy, and business circles, especially in the US, which
discreetly accumulate fortunes through parallel channels and exempt companies
that trade with Iran. Finally, the embargo has inslled in Iranians a mentality
that forces them to circumvent, lie, or cheat in order to access services that
are denied to them, both on an individual and state level. These habits, which
have been in place for decades, will be extremely difficult to eradicate in the
event of future economic normalizaon between Iran and Western countries.
Some conclusions (pending the end
of the war)
Forty-seven years of pressure,
war, and propaganda on Iran by the West has ulmately produced results that are
the opposite of what Westerners had hoped and wished for. They reinforced the
isolaonist and ultra-conservave axis in Iranian governance; militarized Iranian
governance at the expense of polical diversificaon; radicalized even the most
moderate elements; provoked naonal unity in a polically divided country;
damaged the economy to the detriment of the populaon and to the benefit of black
markets and hidden or mafia-like economic circuits; and alienated from the West
the Iranian populaon, which is generally favorable to Western culture and oen
Westernized.
Iran has never been given the me
to develop in a peaceful environment. By placing Iran in an “Axis of Evil” in
2002, President George W. Bush undermined the policies of reformist President
Khatami and strengthened those forces in Iran that want neither normalizaon nor
even diplomac contacts with the West. Donald Trump's unexplained abandonment of
the JCPOA in 2018 ruined President Rouhani's economic policy and forced Iran to
turn to China and Russia, further entrenching itself in the geopolical
reconfiguraon evidenced by the rise of the BRICS countries. In June 2025 and
then in February of this year, Iran was atacked even as negoaons were underway.
These atacks, which were juridically illegal, morally treacherous, and
militarily cowardly, combined with statements by key Western countries
(Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) validang American lies and violaons
of internaonal law, have long compromised any possibility of dialogue and even
any prospect of a soluon.
The current war will only
strengthen an-Western senment in Iran, harden sovereign naonalism, and
definively confirm the shi towards the East (Russia, China) that began aer
2018. It will also push Iranians to consider manufacturing or acquiring nuclear
weapons, even though Iran's doctrine of deterrence does not require them:
missiles provide a sufficient and adequate response to aggression, but as the
example of North Korea shows, nuclear weapons can deter the very idea of
aggression.
In 2003, the US invasion of Iraq
was movated by a state lie relayed by complicit media outlets— Saddam Hussein's
alleged possession of weapons of mass destrucon. The ensuing American quagmire
was caused less by a lack of military resources than by a structural inability
to understand the history and culture of others and to adapt policy to that
understanding. The result was that Iran was able to come out on top, and thanks
to American mistakes, it succeeded in reinvesng in virtually every level of the
Iraqi establishment. We can deduce that the same will be true of this war: Iran
will emerge victorious, driving the Americans out of the Persian Gulf, offering
non-aligned countries (the Global South, BRICS) a model of resistance and counter-power
to Western neo-imperialism, and imposing a geopolical rebalancing in the Middle
East that will mark the coming decades.
There is no doubt that, in certain Iranian circles that have been
preparing for this confrontaon for a long me, this war is also seen as an
opportunity to establish a new geopolical order in the Middle East. The Israeli-American
mistakes appear to be a “providenal” instrument for the reaffirmaon of imperial
Iran and to setle scores with all the players (obvious or hidden) in the
region.
If in any conflict the advantage
lies in a balance of power and knowledge, we can already see that Western
countries have been vicms of their military superiority complex as much as
their Western-centric approach. Imbued with Israeli-American firepower, they
cannot and will not see that it is their world, and their worldview, that is
being consumed. This is not only a diplomac defeat, but also a polical,
academic, and even epistemological failure. European and Western diplomats have
been blinded by an American geostrategic paradigm that is incapable of
understanding non-Western sociees. Universies study Iran, but their knowledge
has clearly had no impact on polical decisions, revealing a dangerous gap
between experse and polical decision-making. The problem also stems from
certain academic circles and research instutes which, between pretenous claims
and anecdotal work, are unable to provide a relevant and muldimensional view of
Iran, or perceive it only through outdated, inappropriate, or narrow analycal
frameworks, or worse sll, simply follow parsan agendas and ideological
dictates.
We live in paradoxical mes. Never
before has there been so much talk about intelligence (arficial or otherwise),
and never before have we had so much data and informaon at our fingerps. At the
same me, in most Western countries, leaders—polical, military—and their advisors
and diplomats have never been so dangerously ignorant, unaware, and
irresponsible. Rarely, too, has hatred towards a country—Iran—built up by
decades of propaganda disguised as informaon, so clouded judgment and swept the
media and policians into a form of irraonality. The balance of power and an
exceponal alignment of planets (the Middle East aer October 7, 2023, Donald
Trump's follow-the-leader approach to Israeli policy) have made the current
events possible. But before that, it would have been preferable for the various
actors to have lived up to the moral standards of their posions: to produce a
balanced and pluralisc view of Iranian realies in parcular and Middle Eastern
complexity in general, which forms the basis of any scienfic approach; to
respect internaonal law, which is in principle the duty of any state parcipang
in a certain world order; priorizing responsible diplomacy based on
comprehensive and relevant knowledge, which is a core requirement of
internaonal and intercultural relaons.
War, in this case, is not the
connuaon of polics by other means (Carl von Clausewitz), it is simply the
tragic conclusion of human failure. This is what we can learn from Iran's
centuriesold culture, and in parcular from Ferdowsi's Book of Kings (Shahnameh),
the 11th-century Iranian epic: nothing is worse than the dimming of
intelligence; knowledge is worthless without wisdom; those who want to live
must know how to die; and the world cannot survive without jusce.
Dr Patrick Ringgenberg
Iran and
Middle East Program, EPFL-Lausanne, Switzerland
Associate
Researcher, IHAR, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
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